The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Japanese disaster response team have started the bagging operations to temporarily seal the leaks of the sunken motor tanker (MT) Princess Empress, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Administrator Ariel Nepomuceno said on Sunday.
In a statement, Nepomuceno also expressed his gratitude to several countries for their support in the country's oil spill incident response.
"We hope that along with this international assistance, the integrated response between government agencies and the local government units will enable us to accelerate the effort to contain the leakage," he added.
The bag utilized in the sealing operations were from the United Kingdom (UK) and these arrived in Oriental Mindoro on Friday, according to Oriental Mindoro Governor Humerlito 'Bonz' Dolor in a Facebook post.
He said the remaining 16 customized bags would arrive by Monday, March 3, from Cavite province.
From March 1 to 31, the PCG reported it had collected about 14,083 liters of oily water mixture and 155 sacks of oil-contaminated materials during its offshore response operations.
Meanwhile, for its shoreline response, the Coast guard has gathered 22 drums and 4,150.5 sacks of oil-contaminated materials so far.
